January 10, 2008

1/10: The Preacher Vs. The Warrior?

Most bloggers concur with National Journal's latest WH '08 rankings for the Dem and GOP races: Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are locked in a tight battle, while John McCain is the new (if shaky) GOP frontrunner. On the Dem side, Chris Bowers gives the edge to HRC because he thinks the NY senator can lose NV and SC and still prevail, while Obama cannot. However, other bloggers believe that the winds of change still favor Obama.

On the GOP side, McCain is generally considered to be the favorite due to his NH win and his relative strength in MI and SC. However, McCain continues to take significant heat from conservatives in both the blogosphere and talk radio. If McCain knocks out Mitt Romney in MI and gets into a two-person race with Mike Huckabee, will conservatives really rally behind McCain? Campaign Standard's Matthew Continetti doesn't know the answer to this question:

"A lot of conservatives have problems with both Huckabee and McCain. Last night on Fox, for example, Sean Hannity could barely conceal his distaste for both pols. Rush Limbaugh and the Wall Street Journal editorial page also have problems with the Huck and the Mac. National Review endorsed Romney in December. How would these conservatives cope with Romney's failure? It's possible they will side with McCain in the end. Some of them may give [Rudy] Giuliani a second look. But a disappointing finish for Rudy in Florida would make this a two-man race by late night January 29. Then Republicans would choose between the preacher and the warrior."

DEM FIELD: So What Actually Happened In NH?

Political junkies in the blogosphere are trying to piece together what exactly happened in NH:

Open Left's Bowers thinks a "perfect storm" of factors accounted for the ten-point swing from Obama to HRC:

1.) First, Clinton probably had a superior absentee voter program, which gave her a small boost...Absentee voters were not included in the exit poll, and a successful and strong absentee voter program can indeed account for a 3-4% net swing, especially since Clinton held a commanding 48%--31% lead among voters who had their minds made up the longest. [...]

2.) Second, the polls were somewhat wrong, probably due both to a very mild 'Wilder effect' and to improper weighting of the electorate / measurement of likely voters. [...]

3.) Third, there was a break toward Clinton on Election Day itself, when no polls were taken. A survey of 2004 and 2000 polls taken between Iowa and New Hampshire shows there is a tendency for Iowa bounces to begin to recede after three to five days, meaning that by Election Day Clinton should have been pulling back on Obama anyway, with or without a sympathy vote.

4.) Fourth, [John] Edwards and [Bill] Richardson supporters who favored Clinton as a second choice disproportionately broke away and choose Clinton, since the narrative implied both that she was the only other candidate who could win and that she needed help to do so...By way of contrast, Edwards and Richardson supporters who favored Obama as a second choice probably didn't think Obama needed any help. This could have added as much as 3% to Clinton's total.

5.) Fifth, Clinton was assisted by the ballot order, probably to the tune of about 3%. Clinton was at the top of the ballot, and it is a well-known long and long-studied phenomenon in politics that placement at the top of the ballot provides a not insignificant edge to any given candidate.

The Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum takes a similar view: "None of the 'big' explanations seem to pan out, so it's most likely a collection of little explanations: a few points from [Joe] Biden supporters, a few points from [Chris] Dodd supporters, a few points from undecideds, a little bit better turnout from women, and perhaps a bit of polling error in the post-Iowa polls. Add it all up and you get a 10-12 point swing. It's not a sexy explanation, but it seems like it's probably the right one."

The Huffington Post's Thomas Edsall thinks Obama was hurt by his race: "The outcome of the Democratic contest [in NH] suggests the emergence of the so-called 'Bradley/Wilder/Dinkins effect' -- a discrepancy between election results and poll data in races in which African American candidates win 5 to 10 percentage points fewer votes than predicted...According to Andrew Kohut of the Pew Research Center, 'The failure [of polling] on the Democratic side has to do with the fact that Clinton ran best among groups of voters who most often refuse polls -- poorer, less well-educated people. These are also the very people who are reluctant to vote for a black candidate'...race apparently worked against Obama at the margins in the Granite State."

The Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan hopes this isn't true: "[New Hampshire] is the first primary -- not a caucus. People get to vote in a secret ballot -- not in front of their largely liberal peers, as in Iowa. They may have told the pollsters one thing about voting for a black man, but in the privacy of the voting booth, something else happens...The vast discrepancy between the last polls and the result puts it on the table. I hope it's not true. But it could be."

Digby doesn't think the so-called "Bradley effect" played a role in Obama's loss: "There is a racist party in America, but it ain't us, no matter how much the gasbags want to insist it is. It certainly could have happened, but considering that it didn't develop in Tennessee with Harold Ford, it seems unlikely to me that it happened in New Hampshire with Obama. In New Hampshire, Obama met his expected numbers, so it wasn't a matter of people lying before the contest. The only way the BE could have happened was if the late deciders were all lying and determined to vote against Obama but afraid to say so. That doesn't seem likely to me."

TAPPED's Sam Boyd is similarly dubious: "The lack of movement in Obama's numbers suggests that the dreaded Bradley/Wilder effect, in which more people say they'll vote for a black person than actually do, didn't play a role."

Meanwhile, Bowers puts forward another theory -- which aligns well with the netroots' central critique of Obama: "Did Obama's message of conciliatory unity cost him the New Hampshire primary? Sure looks like it. According to exit polls, 30% of Democrats identified themselves as 'dissatisfied' with the Bush administration. Obama narrowly won those voters, 39%-38%. However, among the 62% of participants in the Democratic primary who described themselves as 'angry' with the Bush administration, Clinton won 39%-34%. And thus, we have Clinton's 2.6% margin of victory almost precisely. Democrats are pissed off at Bush, I mean really pissed off and angry. There simply isn't anyway to win this primary without winning the support of those voters. It appears 'change' isn't enough to put one over the top in that category, at least here. Clinton won the angrier voters, and so she won New Hampshire."

DEM FIELD II: The State Of The Race

Bowers thinks HRC is now in the driver's seat: "Nevada and South Carolina look like must wins for Obama. Fortunately for him, he scored two major union endorsements in Nevada today, SEIU and UNITE-HERE locals, and he leads in South Carolina polling. He needs to win both of those to stave off what will inevitably be some Clinton momentum coming out of New Hampshire, and to revitalize what will probably be his own flagging national momentum. Should Obama take both states, February 5th will be very interesting. Given that she maintains a strong position in Florida, and an unassailable position in Michigan, winning either Nevada or South Carolina should be enough to put her over the top on February 5th."

Open Left's Mike Lux, on the other hand, thinks "the dynamic in this race still favors Obama": "Every campaign has one major question that is the biggest question for voters to answer. In the 2004 primary, it was who has the best chance of beating Bush, and primary voters decided, wrongly as it turned out, that it was [John] Kerry. This year, that question is, who is most likely to deliver real change. I still think that over the course of a long campaign, Obama has a clear edge with voters on that question. And, by the way, that question is especially dominant with women voters, so Obama doesn't have to keep losing the women's vote to Hillary."

Firedoglake's Jane Hamsher agrees with Lux: "The momentum is still with Obama...The reports of life in the Clinton campaign may be premature. If in fact a late display of emotion and the media pile-on it triggered helped Clinton over the finish line in New Hampshire, it isn't a repeatable formula. She needs to retool her messaging. And in the name of all that is holy, get those sleezebag surrogates off the televison set."

OBAMA: On The Bright Side...

Obama's sympathizers in the blogosphere are trying to stay positive after his stunning NH loss:

Sullivan: "A tough, long primary battle will take the sting out of the powerful backlash that [Obama] is the function of a fad of euphoria, marketing hype, or gas-baggery. It will take the edge off the criticism that he is untested. It will help him prove his mettle and endurance. His coolness in response to adversity is one of his stronger personal attributes. This could be highlighted...In a long, drawn out battle with the Clintons, Obama will have a lot of cheering from the Republican and Independent sections of the crowd. If he beats Clinton not in a sudden burst of fervor, but in a long, brutal war for delegates, then all the more reason why Republicans and Independents will come to him in the fall."

MyDD's psericks: "You know, I have to say I was actually strangely pleased with that New York Times headline this morning. Hillary Clinton upsets Barack Obama. Hillary Clinton, wife of Bill Clinton, former leader of the free world, was the underdog in a race against an until recently unknown urban black guy from the south side of Chicago via Hawaii and Indonesia named Barack Obama. This is a guy whose punchline in every stump speech during his 2004 Senate race revolved around his funny name. If that doesn't say something about how much we've already achieved in this race, I don't know what does. Clinton might be firmly back in this race, but she'll never be what she was before."

The Atlantic's Matthew Yglesias: "The Obama campaign's strategy for victory certainly isn't very interesting but by the same token, it's utterly plausible. It's worth recalling that four weeks ago, Obama was down badly everywhere except Iowa. The events of the past seven days are clearly a net plus for his campaign."

Meanwhile, TAPPED's Mark Schmitt offers Obama some advice: [Obama] is falling into the tendency that many 'wine-track' candidates do of talking about his candidacy as if it were some sort of other-worldly cause: 'something happening,'...'it's about you,' etc. Howard Dean's 'people-powered politics' had the same flaw. That kind of language is inspirational in the moment, but quickly makes a campaign seem vapid and vain even if it isn't. It leaves a listener open to the sense that you're the candidate of process, feeling, and personality, which allows the hard-work-and-experience candidate to claim the mantle of substance by comparison...But Obama didn't get through 15 debates without substance. (Which is why the Clinton claim that 'he's gotten a free ride' is unpersuasive.) He's got an elegant, expansive pitch-perfect take on foreign policy that's markedly different from Clinton's; he has good proposals on poverty, climate change, and a defensible health proposal...Obama put five solid paragraphs of pure substance into his [concession] speech, moving from health care to international issues in a smooth passage. He should do that all the time."

Mike Lux offers similar advice: "Obama's message about change has become more mono-syllable than Edwards' pure populism. He has to show he has the grit and substance to actually deliver real change, not just preach about it."

EDWARDS: Kingmaker?

Lux: "Edwards is dead as a Presidential prospect for 2008, but if this becomes a long, drawn out, fairly evenly-divided fight, and Edwards stays in and keeps drawing around 20% everywhere he goes, he could be the guy who decides the nominee. I could easily see this playing out where Obama wins a bunch of states and Clinton wins a bunch, and they both end up with about 40% of the delegates, and Edwards keeps playing to the end of the primary process and then delivers his 20% to one of them. Could make things interesting right up to convention day."

The Left Coaster's Turkana: "Senator Edwards is not going to be president. That doesn't mean he should drop out of the race. He's one of the most articulate populists we've had in a long time. He doesn't have the money to compete with Senators Clinton and Obama, but he should keep going, anyway. He's saying things that need be said...He can also help push Senators Clinton and Obama to be better candidates. I've already noticed him doing so. Senator Obama is becoming a better fighter, and Senator Clinton is becoming a better populist. That's now Senator Edwards's role. Keep the other two honest. Keep them focused on the domestic issues that matter. Keep them focused on fighting for the people."

MCCAIN: When Conservatives Attack

Townhall's Hugh Hewitt interviewed ex-Sen. Rick Santorum on his radio show yesterday, and Santorum had harsh words for his former Senate colleague John McCain. From the transcript:

Hewitt: "Why can't John McCain win this election?"

Santorum: "Well, number one, John McCain will not get the base of the Republican Party. I mean, there was a reason John McCain collapsed last year, and it's because he was the frontrunner, and everybody in the Republican Party got a chance to look at him. And when they looked at him, they said well, wait a minute, he's not with us on almost all of the core issues...on the economic side, he was against the President's tax cuts, he was bad on immigration. On the environment, he's absolutely terrible. He buys into the complete left wing environmentalist movement in this country. He is for bigger government on a whole laundry list of issues...And then on the issue of, on social conservative issues, you point to me one time John McCain every took the floor of the United States Senate to talk about a social conservative issue. It never happened...So I mean, this is just not a guy I think in the end that washes with the mainstream of the Republican Party."

Hewitt agrees: "Conservatives have to know that Senator McCain is the anti-conservative, and Rick Santorum's warning should be read by every Republican in every state yet to vote, and not just for the discussion of the McCain-Kennedy immigration fiasco highlighted below. I hope one or more of the Fox News panel uses many of Senator Santorum's quotes in tonight's debate to put the issue of John McCain's anti-conservatism center on the table."

Soren Dayton defends McCain: "McCain will continue to be vulnerable on immigration, but exit polls in New Hampshire put that issue behind the economy, the war in Iraq, and the great struggle against terrorism. McCain has opened up a defense from Romney's attack on his tax record with Senator Phil Gramm and Rep. Jack Kemp. Besides, it looks like the Wall Street Journal may play a little defense for him too. McCain is already the clear 2nd in South Carolina, and a bump from New Hampshire and, possibly Michigan, would likely tighten the race with Mike Huckabee there...In conclusion, this seems likea McCain-Huckabee race, with outside chances for Rudy and Mitt to have surprisingly strong showings."

NRO's Rich Lowry thinks McCain can win the GOP nomination in spite of his problems with conservatives: "Conservatives were 54% of the electorate [in NH] and McCain lost to Romney among them by seven points. When the race moves south, conservatives will probably be 75-80% of the electorate, and they will presumably dominate in closed primaries. But this is the thing: At the outset, it looked like the way the early states were stacked up would help Romney. But once Romney lost Iowa, they were stacked up to help McCain. The Arizona senator might be able to all but knock Romney out of the race in Michigan with another strong showing among independents, meaning he could possibly KO Romney without ever beating him handily among Republicans. Weird, huh? Then, with Romney gone, McCain is presumably competing with Huckabee and Rudy (although Fred is still lurking) for those conservative voters and that's a fight he could well win."

ROMNEY: It's Time To Put Up Or Shut Up

NRO's Jim Geraghty: "When you're self-financing, you can buy yourself a lot of second chances. And yes, Romney is leading the delegate count. But is the plan to gather the most delegates by finishing in second place in enough states that award delegates proportionally? Where's he going to win?...At some point, Mitt Romney's got to go out and win a hotly-contested state. Wyoming is nice, but it's not decisive. He's got to show that when you throw him into a hard-fought, no-quarter-given-or-asked political fight, he can come out on top."

Soren Dayton: "Mitt Romney must win in Michigan or drop out. He is going to have to talk about his business experience because of the weakness of his governing record. The clear rejection of his negative attacks means that he will probably have to go more positive. Romney's long-term confidence can be seen in his dropping of South Carolina buys. If he performs in Michigan, he would be close to dark in South Carolina."

Captain's Quarters' Ed Morrissey is not so sure: "Mitt Romney needs a win in the primaries soon, despite all of the rhetoric about delegate counts and second-place credibility. The Romney team apparently understands that, and have begun focusing their advertising on the upcoming Michigan primary...Let's not get too far out in predicting Romney's demise, however. He can self-fund for a while still, and so he will remain in the race. If he can't win Michigan, expect a huge ad blitz in the key February 5th states, including California and New York but probably focusing on the internal states. Holding off on South Carolina and Florida now allows him to conserve some of his funds for a much bigger effort focusing on winning enough Super Tuesday states to keep the campaign credible. Given the broad nature of these contests, Romney could easily score significant wins with an ad campaign that few if any of the other candidates can afford."

Hugh Hewitt agrees with Morrissey: "There is no way Romney should retire from this race before Super Tuesday no matter how many Beltway-Manhattan pundits want him out. The conservatives are not going to surrender their party, and they want a chance to say so at the ballot box. As the upheaval on the Democratic side showed yesterday, there are many surprises in store for pollsters and pundits in the new media age of politics. By February 5, a thoroughly disgusted core of Republican activists from the center-right will be mobilized across the country to keep their party on the path established by the Reagan-Bush coalitions."

Meanwhile, Rich Lowry analyzes Romney's problems: "One lesson we've had from Iowa and New Hampshire is unorthodox moves -- while scorned by the pundits (including me) -- have worked this year, whether it was Huckabee's ad press conference or Hillary's crying. They are those spontaneous (or spontaneous-seeming) moments that humanize a candidate and give him or her a certain depth. Romney hasn't had one, and his trouble as a campaigner is that he doesn't quite seem capable of having one. Unless he does, he just may never catch on with enough voters to win."

AmSpec Blog's Jennifer Rubin has a similar take: "Part of the problem may lie in the fact that [Romney] seems to be the most conventional politician of the bunch. He is the most coiffed and on message, his word parsing is expertly Washingtonian, his views have lined up with party orthodoxy and his high octane fundraising and email bombardment machine all make him seem much more conventional a figure than Rudy or McCain or certainly Huckabee. If you knew none of the cast of characters and were shown all their pictures, read their stump speech and watched a few days of their coverage and communications output you'd identify Romney as the life long politician. So if part of the 'change' that voters are looking for is a more spontaneous, less scripted, less manicured and less conventional figure it may be Huckabee or McCain or even Rudy who represents the biggest departure from the status quo."

HUCKABEE: Don't Misunderestimate Him

CBN's David Brody links to a recent poll showing Huckabee leading in MI and writes: "I have been contacted by many grassroots activists in Michigan for the last two months or so, and they continue to tell me that Huckabee has a huge base of support among grassroots conservative activists and Evangelicals in Michigan. It's somewhat similiar to Iowa...If Huckabee actually wins Michigan, then comes South Carolina which means a serious shot at two in a row. He's already virtually neck and neck with Giuliani in Florida. Then comes February 5 where many southern states have their primaries. Could that be the path towards the nomination?"

Soren Dayton also thinks Huckabee may surprise in MI: "[I] think that [Huckabee] may perform better than people expect in Michigan, squeezing Mitt Romney from the right on social issues."

Meanwhile, Right Wing News' John Hawkins isn't thrilled with Huckabee, but he'll vote for him if Fred Thompson drops out: "While Mike Huckabee isn't as conservative as I'd like, John McCain has done more damage to conservative causes over the last decade than anyone else, Democrat or Republican, and Rudy Giuliani has as much in common with pro-war, liberal Democrats like Joe Lieberman and Christopher Hitchens as he does with conservatives. Mitt Romney may be promising to be more conservative than Huckabee, but Mitt Romney can't beat Hillary or Obama in a general election. Huckabee can. So, if Fred is eliminated, I'm all in for Mike Huckabee."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Clinton/Richardson '08?

The New Republic's Jason Zengerle sees an opportunity for Richardson:

"It seems to be the CW that if Hillary wins Nevada or South Carolina, she'll go a long way toward sewing up the nomination. It also seems to be CW that Hillary enjoys a real advantage with Hispanic voters over Obama. It also seems to be CW that Bill Richardson's apparent decision to stay in the race through Nevada will siphon off Hispanic votes there that would otherwise go to Hillary.

So, given that it's CW that Richardson's whole presidential campaign is really geared toward getting the number two spot on the Democratic ticket, wouldn't it be smart for him to propose to Hillary that he'll drop out before Nevada in exchange for her promise that she'll pick him as her runningmate? I don't think it's a deal Hillary would be willing to strike, but, at this point, what does Richardson have to lose?"

LEST WE FORGET: Iowa & New Hampshire Post-Mortem

The Miami Herald's Dave Barry (h/t Matthew Continetti):

"Let's take a moment to look back on both the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primaries, and ask ourselves if these two non-representative states -- which have, between them, roughly the same total minority population as Gladys Knight and the Pips -- should play such a huge role in selecting our presidential nominees. This is a very complex issue, with many strong arguments on both sides.

No, sorry, correction: It's actually a simple issue. The Iowa/New Hampshire system is insane. It's like a 50-table restaurant with a big, varied menu, except that only two tables are allowed to order. If these two tables order clams, for example, or Michael Dukakis, that's what gets served to all the other tables.

But at this point I don't think there's anything the rest of the states can do about it. Iowa and New Hampshire will do anything to be first. You populous states can't beat them, because they want it more than you do. They're like the people who camp out for two weeks so they can be in front of the line to buy tickets for a hot concert, except that instead of a hot concert, it's a chance to shake hands with Duncan Hunter six different times."

Posted by Ian Faerstein at January 10, 2008 12:57 PM